Another day, another injury. When all the orthopaedic woes are added to the sub-standard arrangements signed off by another regime which means the dates for England’s first Test in New Zealand for three years turns into a club-versus-country conflict for 15 or so players involved in this Saturday’s grand final, there is no denying a botch-up.

It would be bad enough (and often is) were this just any summer tour. Instead it’s a visit to the backyard of the world champions, the global No1 team for as long as anyone can remember, and just 15 months before they come to Britain to defend their title.

Think negatively, and England’s history down there – the World Cup shenanigans following serial tour disasters before and since 2003 – is pretty bleak. So is it time to start brushing up the excuses, dusting down the lexicon of defeat – “taking positives” etc, etc? Probably not.

A Test series starting 12,000 miles away less than seven days after the best sides in the land (by definition) knock lumps off each other is not clever – and were the architects of the three-Test tour still around they ought to be dragged over the coals; apparently minds were elsewhere, concerned with internecine squabbles when the tour was signed off. But such is the stable state of the current England regime and its thinking, it is possible to see good coming from it.

After all, look at the starting XV that I have in mind for Eden Park on Saturday week and, barring further injuries in training, it is possible that, despite injuries and cock-ups, all but two had some part to play in the Six Nations. Be it Freddie Burns or Danny Cipriani who starts at 10 at Eden Park, where the All Blacks haven’t lost in decades, they will surely make way for Owen Farrell for the second Test, if he escapes the grand final unscathed, while Rob Webber (most likely) will hand the No2 shirt back to Dylan Hartley (if fit).

Seamless is a word I hesitate to use, but it’s even possible to look at the “other” England game – to be played against the Barbarians at Twickenham on Sunday – and see it as part of the programme which is not only looking after today, or more exactly the next month in New Zealand, but also the World Cup which follows next autumn’s global gathering.

Take out the 15 or so England players who will be contesting the Northampton versus Saracens grand final on Saturday, add the 30 who flew out to New Zealand on Tuesday plus the guys on standby lest bumps and bruises turn into full-blown, stay-at-home-and-mend-for-next year injuries, and you could argue that Sunday is very much work in progress for Japan 2019.

I’m the lucky boy – along with Mike Tindall – given the chance of coaching the glittering array of Barbarians talent to line up against England on Sunday and looking down their match-day squad and removing the three who already have Test caps, plus Michael Paterson of Sale, who is probably already worth one, there are well over a dozen genuine England prospects.

Should we be surprised that a third-, possibly fourth-string England side has so much talent? Probably not because, by fluke or intent (more likely the latter) Stuart Lancaster, even before he was made full-time head coach at the end of March 2012, had been creating a conveyor belt which had been churning out talent in the style of that Welsh version which used to specialise in fly-halves.

It obviously helped that he had previously been in charge of the Saxons. However, Lancaster put in place a process and hasn’t deviated from it since; he puts young players on the conveyor belt and when the inevitable car crash happens and players are injured or lose their form, he looks back down the belt to see what’s coming through.

There will have been times when a short-term fix would be easier, but he’s stuck by the process – five of the seven given debuts in that first game of the 2012 Six Nations are still very much involved today – which is commendable in such a results-orientated business and it will, no matter what happens next autumn, earn the head coach another four-year term in control.

Finally a word about Steve Borthwick, who plays his last game in the grand final on Saturday. The worst thing that happened to Borthwick was to have been England captain when he was. Under Lancaster it might have been very different.

When Eddie Jones was at Saracens, Borthwick was his first signing, lured from Bath, and the former Australia coach has now tempted the 34-year-old Cumbrian to join him in Japan, coaching the national side to next year’s World Cup and beyond. He’ll be a huge success.